Another V.V. game, played 57 years ago!

As someone who has few personal recollections of my father or maternal grandfather (my paternal grandfather died about 16 years before I came into this world), I'll grasp at any straw, it seems, to make some kind - any kind - of connection with them in an attempt to understand better what kind of people they were.

That's part of what drives me to analyze my grandfather "V.V."s games, found in a small pocket memo book of ancient manufacture (a "University" No. 5-406, with a "Wire-O Binding").

What can you tell about a person from a chess game? I'm not sure, really. I guess what I'm doing is overlaying what I'd like my grandfather to have been onto a schema of people I've known who play at about the same level. In my analysis, I'm not trying to puff my grandfather up into some kind of super-chessplayer, nor am I trying to tear him down and brand him what chess fanatics call a patzer, or weak player. I'm looking for what may be those small (and rare, believe me) flashes of insight that define the amateur player of various levels.

Enough blabbing. Here's a nice outing by my grandfather, 57 years ago tonight:

[Event "Wednesday night event"]
[Date "1946.03.26"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Spielholtz"]
[Black "VV"]
[Result "0-1"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3

{Squanders White's opening advantage, IMO.}

3...d6

{I would have played 3...d5, I think.}

4.Bc4 Nf6 5.d3 a6 6.a3 Bg4

{White should have castled last move, and should castle this move. Instead...}

7.h3 Bh5 8.Bf4 Qc7 9.Nbd2 Ne5 10.Qa4+ Qc6 11.Qxc6+ Nxc6 12.b4 b5 13.Bb3 e6 14.e5 dxe5 15.Nxe5 Nxe5 16.Bxe5 Nd7 17.Bg3 Bg6 18.Ke2

{No need to castle anymore, with the heavy iron off the board and few prospects for combinative play.}

18...Be7 19.Rad1 O-O 20.Rhe1 a5 21.Ne4

{A mistake. I think 21.bxc5 was indicated. This move loses a pawn.}

21...axb4 22.axb4 cxb4 23.Kd2

{Another inaccuracy. Now, with 23...Rfc8, Black starts to pour it on!}

23...Rfc8 24.c4?

{This only helps Black.}

24...Bxe4 25.Rxe4

{In trying to maintain support for c4 (via the pawn on d3), White allows...}

25...Nc5 26.Kc2 Nxe4 27.dxe4 bxc4 28.Rd7?

{This simply loses a piece.}

28...cxb3+ 29.Kxb3 Kf8 30.Rb7 f6

{Not a very exact move, but the position favors Black in a lopsided way. Here, I'd think about starting some trouble with 30...Rc3, then maybe double my rooks on the c-file.}

31.h4 e5 32.h5

{Is White just going through the motions? Maybe he's in time trouble?}

32...Rc3+ 33.Kb2 Rac8 34.Bh4 Rc2+ 35.Kb1

{35.Kb3 is a disaster, starting with 35...R8c3 36.Ka4 b3, intending ...b2, ...Ra3+ and ...b1=Q.}

35...R8c3 36.g4 Re2 37.Rb8+

{A spite check.}

37...Kf7 38.Rb7 Rh3

{The only way to parry the threat of mate is 39.Rc7, which then results in the loss of the bishop after 39...Rxh4. White resigned.}

0-1

Cheers...

A good day for translations...

My cell phone rang in the middle of doing the report this morning.

Can I do three pages for tomorrow?

You betcha!

My phone rang again a little after noon.

Can I incorporate some edits to a translation for tomorrow, say, by noon?

You betcha!

The first item was sent and invoiced earlier in the afternoon.

The second I finished a little while ago. I felt compelled to work on it until I was either finished or had gone through enough of the document to assure being able to finish tomorrow morning.

Incorporating edits into a translation can be a dirty, rotten job, even if the edits are marked in revision mode. Just so we're clear on what's going on, the idea here starts with the fact that document A has been translated into another language (resulting in document B). Document B, in turn, has been edited... some things added, others deleted, still a third group tweaked with minor insertions and deletions. Call the result B'.

Now the translator, with the revised document B' in hand, must go back to the original (document A) and make the same changes so that the result (call it document A') reflects the content of B'. Still with me?

The major pitfalls in this rather straightforward arrangement are these:

1) Unless the people on the side reading document B are very conscientious, it is not uncommon for someone to make changes in the text that are not done in revision mode. The end result now has changes in it that will never make it back to the original, unless a line-by-line comparison is made.

2) Unless the people on the side reading document A are very conscientious, it is not uncommon for someone to have made changes in the text in revision mode or not, before making the document available to the translator so that changes can be incorporated from B'.

Typically this leads to a Real Bad Situation™, to wit: receiving instructions that limit your task (and concomitant compensation) to "incorporate only the bits in revision mode," followed by indignation (and amnesia regarding your instructions) over all of the mismatches between source and target texts after you are finished.

So of course, the instructions appear in my invoice, despite the fact that my client really has a good handle on all of this.

Anyway, I will give the text another once-over tomorrow morning and then send it off. It's not as if anyone is in the office now to receive the file.

Cheers...